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Posts Tagged ‘Highway Trust Fund’

THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS
With the temporary increase in funding for the federal highway trust fund set to run out by May 2015, states and localities are again facing the prospect that shortfalls in the fund could delay or reduce the federal money they rely on for transportation projects. As they wait to see what federal policymakers will do, many states are taking action to make their own transportation funding more sustainable. These efforts highlight the major challenges that all levels of government face in maintaining investments in highways and transit systems—problems that will require policymakers to make difficult choices in the years ahead.

Innovation Newsbriefs
Vol. 25, No. 16
Has the time come to reconsider the way we pay for transportation? Should the Highway Trust Fund and its fuel tax revenue continue as the main source of funding for the federal transportation program? If not, what are the alternatives? And more broadly, is the age of long term reauthorizations and of heavy reliance on federal funding, drawing to a close?

ENO CENTER FOR TRANSPORTATION
The current federal program for funding surface transportation infrastructure in the United States is broken. Since 2008, the U.S. Highway Trust Fund (HTF) has repeatedly been on the brink of insolvency, necessitating five infusions from the U.S. Treasury’s General Fund. Many solutions have been proposed to stabilize funding for the federal surface transportation program, but each has confronted substantial political barriers. This study details the circumstances that have led the U.S. transportation program to its current funding situation and explores how other nations have created sustainable mechanisms for ensuring adequate national level investment in surface transportation systems.

Kevin DeGood is the Director of Infrastructure Policy at American Progress. His work focuses on how highway, transit, aviation, and maritime policy affect America’s global competitiveness, access to opportunity for diverse communities, and environmental sustainability.

“To a certain extent we’re victims of our own success…For all of its problems, we have still a fundamentally sound and fantastic transportation system. Again, none of that means that we don’t need investment. None of that means that there aren’t real challenges, because there certainly are and that’s what we’ve dedicated ourselves to trying to solve.”

As Congress considers legislation to avoid a shortfall of the Highway Trust Fund, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and 11 of his predecessors offered the following open letter to Congress. In addition to Secretary Foxx, Secretaries Ray LaHood, Mary Peters, Norman Mineta, Rodney Slater, Federico Peña, Samuel Skinner, Andrew Card, James Burnley, Elizabeth Dole, William Coleman and Alan Boyd all signed the letter. Their message: Congress’ work doesn’t end with the bill under consideration. Transportation in America still needs a much larger, longer-term investment.

Innovation Newsbriefs
Vol. 25, No.
While transportation stakeholders and the Washington press corps focus on the impending insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund and bemoan the fact that the House-Senate agreement to replenish the Trust Fund provides only short-term funding ($10.8 billion) through May 2015, they are ignoring developments outside the Beltway that go a long way toward compensating for an absence of congressional action on long-term funding. For in fact, individual states, far from sitting idly by, are responding to the fiscal uncertainties in Washington by stepping up and raising additional revenue to meet their transportation needs.

The infographic reveals a slew of alarming facts and predictions centering on the depletion of MAP-21 funding by Fall of 2014, which will lead to states being responsible for 100% of transportation funding. Did you know that, already, 45% of Americans don’t have access to transit? Did you know that 1 in 4 of our bridges is in need of significant repair? While states have come up with some viable funding mechanisms of their own, it’s clearly time for the Fed to step in and replenish this vital source of transportation funding.

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE
The federal government spends more than $50 billion per year on surface transportation programs, mostly in the form of grants to state and local governments. Much of this spending is for highways and mass transit programs financed through the Highway Trust Fund. Those programs have an unusual treatment in the federal budget, and the way they are classified in the budget facilitates the spending of more money from the trust fund than there are dedicated revenues to support such spending. Those revenues come from excise taxes on the sale of motor fuels, trucks and trailers, and truck tires, and from taxes on the use of certain kinds of vehicles.

While transportation stakeholders and the Washington press corps are agonizing about the impending Highway Trust Fund shortfall and its impact on the federal transportation program, they are ignoring developments outside the Beltway that go a long way toward mitigating the prospective funding shortage. For in fact, individual states, far from standing idly by, are responding to the fiscal uncertainties in Washington by stepping up and augmenting their transportation budgets.

Innovation Newsbriefs
Vol. 25, No. 5
With federal transportation spending outpacing tax receipts by some $1.25 billion/month, the cash balance of the Federal Highway Trust is drawing perilously close to the point where the U.S Department of Transportation will be obliged to institute cash management strategies—such as reimbursing states weekly rather than on a daily basis— to keep the Trust Fund account solvent. Based on current spending and revenue trends, this point —a cash balance of $4 billion—may be reached as early as late July according to some estimates.

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